My Book Pro Edition 500GB will not mount

I have a problem with my WD My Book Pro Edition 500GB eternal hard drive.

When trying to mount the drive on my Mac, I can hear the drive turning on and working but it fails to mount. After about five minutes of laboured speeding up and slowing down, it will sometimes appears in the disk utility, but I am unable to verify or repair the disk. It will then drop off disk utility.

It then goes into a state where the disk just spins at constant speed but nothing else happens and pressing the front button will not power the unit down.

I suspect it is rather ill, but I would like to save the data if I can.

(Luckily most of the files are also backed onto CDRs as well.)

Any ideas as to how I can save the situation.

Incidently, the issue started the minute I bought a new RAID external drive, so maybe it didn’t take kindly to impending retirement!

Cheers

fyi - I have a iMac 2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with OSX 10.7.5

Hello,

I recommend that you try come basic troubleshooting:

1- Connect the power adapter to the wall directly.

2- If the computer is a desktop, connect it on the back USB port (directly to the PC, not through a hub).

  

3- Go to disk utility, and verify if the drive shows.

-If it shows in disk utility then click on verify disk.

I followed the instructions with the following results:

  • The drive does appear after a few minutes in Disk Utility
  • When selected and when I click verify disk, the following message shows:
  • ‘Verify volume failed. Unrecognised file system.’
  • A few moments later, the disk no longer appears I disk utility, the unit stops spinning, and the blue light shines continuosuly and pressing the front button has no effect.

Do you have any further thoughts?

Thanks